Avengers: Age of Ultron - First reactions
I'm ... a little underwhelmed?
I mean, I liked it, don't get me wrong, I just didn't love it the way I had expected to. And that makes me inexplicably sad.
I think I may have found out why, too: Apparently, Joss had made a four hour movie. They had to cut it down to a little over two and a half. And that damn well shows everywhere.
Things I loved first, though:
- Clint
- Clint's family
- Clint having a family and Natasha knowing about it and no one, no one expecting a thing
- despite all the big honking clues, Clint not dying. (THANK YOU; JOSS!)
- Natasha and her horrific backstory (it's so brutally efficient and so absolutely horrifying at the same time, even my darling Auburn couldn't have come up with anything worse for her), her horribly forceful way of flirting with Bruce, her desperate inability to be who she maybe thought she should be, or, well, rather, of trying to find a way to be herself and not what somebody else made her to be. Her vulnerability that wasn't weak. Also, because it needs to be said: "Beep, beep."
- Natasha confirming that Clint's her best friend - and how strange a concept the word friend is to Natasha, we learned in Cap 3. She doesn't have friends. But she has Clint (and now Steve).
- Bruce and his struggle with himself, with being part of the team, with Natasha
- Bruce, Natasha and the "lullabye"
- Bruce and Tony being science bros
- the love-story that wasn't
- Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. That was something I hadn't expected, because I found them rather meh in the trailers, and was completely blown away by them in the movie
- Maria Hill and Nick Fury still are the coolest people
- Rhodey is such a loveable dork
- SAM! SAM THE AVENGER! SAM AND THE MISSING PERSON'S CASE.
- Ultron. Yes, super-super creepy
- the visions Scarlet Witch gave them
- Steve's words to Tony in the end, that the guy who wanted family and stability stayed in the ice and the guy who CAME OUT is different and wants different things. (It's just my inner shipper that reads this as Steve/Bucky potentially being canon, but damn, let me dream.)
- Steve and Natasha. Together, with Clint's help, they shall take over the world.
Now, for the things that I missed / didn't like:
- Where was Tony's emotional reaction to losing Jarvis?
- Where the hell was Pepper the entire movie? I get why she wasn't there at the party, but the entire time, she was missing like a limb. There was a Pepper-shaped hole in the movie and it felt as if it made Tony worse for it. Murron had the horrible speculation that maybe Tony and Pepper broke up - and, oh, God, that would make a horrible kind of sense.
- Consequences. Tony created an AI that nearly destroyed the world and all he gets as consequence is a tiny slap on the fingers from Nick?
- Consequences: Tony hit Steve with the repulsors, even with one of the suit's weapons, and if Steve hadn't been Steve, Tony could have killed him in the fight to stop Tony from creating The Vision. And in the end, they just shake hands? Steve says he'll miss Tony? What? What happened in between those scenes? They had an all-out fight that could well have seriously injured either one, potentially even killed - why did no one call Tony on that?
- The teasing at Steve's dark side. Was that all just set-up for Cap 3? Because I would have loved to see that, and actually, I think we would have needed to see that. Steve was back to being almost too goody-two-shoes, too perfect, too ... everything. Where was human Steve, the one we saw in Cap 3? His vision was heartbreaking, too, but where were the consequences? (The person in me very focused on Steve and Bucky (friendship or as a couple) was a bit disappointed that Bucky didn't show up in Steve's vision) Also, the bit with "language" was cute, but, damn it, Steve's not that stuck-up. That grated on my nerves.
- Thor's vision and his trip to the magic pool of let's-ogle-Chris-Hemsworth-wet-and-naked: Why did he suddenly become Deus Ex Machina and knew that Vision would be a cool, helpful dude instead of an even greater danger? What happened in Asgard?
So … yeah. I think I need to see it again with lowered expectations.